The premise for the Soft Rock 100 is to spread the hundred miles of the Hard Rock race route over four days. Frank’s parents had driven across the country in their RV and volunteered to schlep our camping gear around the course so we didn’t have to. It all made sense in theory, but an open question was whether Frank or I was actually capable of jogging/hiking 29 miles over three technical 13,000ft saddles in the span of a day, and then getting up and doing something similar for each of the three to follow. Kerry had actually considered doing the full race, which took the average finisher 41 hours to complete, and was probably more than up to the challenge of the fragmented version.

In addition to falling short on the intense demands for physical fitness, we had also overlooked a few logistical challenges. Chief among these was that one of the four critical campsites wasn’t particularly accessible for a 2wd RV. I don’t know when this detail was discovered, but it was revealed to me only after I had endured a 12-hour bus ride from Denver to Telluride and was pretty well committed to whatever was on offer.

The other detail we hadn’t afforded sufficient thought was the proclivity for the San Juans to be assaulted by sudden, terrifying thunderstorms at all hours of the day, despite forecasts that were decidedly quite to the contrary.

Our first leg was the 15-mile stretch from Ouray to Telluride. Conditions were perfect till the first saddle of the day, but here, despite the mid-morning hour, we encountered our first terrifying stormfront, 1500ft above the treeline. We raced down the scree and managed to cross over into a more tranquil valley, and proceed to Telluride with minimal rain.

The second day, we abandoned any remaining hopes of completing the 26-mile stretch from Telluride to Silverton, and instead did a 15-mile loop that incorporated one pass and followed a spectacular valley back to Bridal Veil Falls. Aside from one brief hailstorm that hit us in the final miles of this route, we were able to spend the day’s storms in bakeries or the RV.

The next day, I set off on my own to meet the Hard Rock route at Ophir and tackle the second and third passes to reach Telluride. I reached the Ice Lakes, but then thunderheads forced me to skip the second saddle, bail to South Mineral Campground, and hitchhike into town. Frank and Kerry had done a gravel road out-and-back and taken the RV to Silverton.

Kerry had planned a 4am start for an Ice Lakes loop, but awoke to find heavy rains. She then proceeded to rage quit the San Juans, and it took little convincing to get the other three to beeline back to Salt Lake. They were kind enough to deflect their route enough to drop me with my Durango friend, so I could be afforded a comfy couch in the days remaining before my Montrose flight. The remaining Hard Rock miles, including the 14,058ft Handies summit, would have to wait for another trip.